It's been a week since I got on the airplane to start my adventure here in Paraguay. Here's an update on my life so far:
Thursday: I got a telephone here! Also I went with my sister, Ceci, to my school to watch the classes practicing for the dance festival. The music was so loud! In the middle, we left with two of her friends to have empanadas. They're like little pies with meat inside of them. My favorite was the ham and cheese one.
Friday: I ate cereal out of a coffee cup: that's the norm here. I got pants for my school uniform and for lunch I tried vori vori, a Paraguayan soup with meat. Danced (the festival) was tonight. I went with my host family and Caroline, an exchange student from Arkansas. Also I had a Paraguayan burger at a lomiteria.
Saturday: Ceci and Mavi took me to the supermarket and I got ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies! We also picked up Caroline and she helped make cookies. I can't say that before Saturday I had ever chopped up a bar of chocolate to make cookies (chocolate chips aren't popular here, we couldn't find any). It took a little while because we had to convert all the measurements (and did some guestimating on the small measurements), but they turned out really good. We ate cookies outside and drank terere and mate (which is hot terere- terere is kinda like tea, but lots of leaf and its served very cold). Also Saturday Caroline and I went to Hunter's house (Hunter is an exchange student from Minnesota) and went out for pizza with some other exchange students and some other people. So much fun!
Sunday: I went with my family to a bull festival. It was kind of like a rodeo, which was pretty exciting. There I tried asado. Asado is like American roast, cooked on a giant stick over a fire. It tasted very good! After that we went to the house of Juanro's grandma. We drank terere and talked for a while. When we went home, Dana (my adorable 2 year old niece) and I watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse in Spanish.
Monday: My first day of school here in Paraguay! I'm in the same class as Hunter, Friedrich and Oskar. Friedrich and Oskar are from Germany. I didn't understand much of anything that happened. School is very different here. I'll talk about it another time.
Tuesday (today): Second day of school here. We had English class for a little while then everyone left to go to a raffle. The people that didn't go (including me) just hung out outside for the rest of the day. It was very chill and VERY chilly! After school I slept for a while and then went to Friedrich's house. He, Oskar, Romana and Manon and I (wow I apologize because I probably butchered those names...) walked around town for a while to find a place to eat. Now I'm at home on my computer.
So that's been my first week here in Paraguay!
Wow! so much fun! I hope it just continues to get better. Can't wait start my own adventure in just 5 days!
ReplyDeleteCatrina,
ReplyDeleteI wrote a long comment to your blog today that apparently did not get saved, so will try again.
Sounds like you are having a wonderful time so far. It is fun to read about the food, the friends, and all the new adventures.
Today was the first day of classes at DHS and it was hot (86F) but the new AC was working in most of the rooms. We have 4 international students this year, from Norway, Germany and Colombia.
I'm hoping we can connect with you through Skype, or e-mail so that the Spanish students can learn about life in Paraguay. Can you post photos to your blog when you have time? Do you think that students in your school would like to have e-mail pen-pals with my Spanish 4 students? (there are 34 students in 4th year Spanish this year)
Is the slang there difficult to understand?
Thanks for keeping us posted and we will keep in touch again soon!
Hasta pronto,
Señora B.